How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"If we are ramen," shouted Human into the Speaker's face, "then it is ours to decide, not yours! And if we are varelse, then you might as well kill us all right now, the way you killed all the Hive Queen's sisters!" (14.212)
This is one of the few times anyone really wins an argument with Ender. Human, the piggie, insists that Ender can't withhold knowledge, that the piggies should decide for themselves what they need and what they don't. Condescending imperialism is the same as genocide—if you're equal, you need to be equal. Ender is in fact guilty of some of the condescension he was criticizing Miro and Ouanda for, and Human calls him on it.
Quote #8
"We are in space precisely because of the impact of a devastatingly superior culture. And yet in only a few generations, we took their machines, surpassed them, and destroyed them. That's what our fence means—we're afraid the piggies will do the same to us." (16.253-254)
At first we think the fence is for the piggies's protection (as in the Prime Directive in Star Trek); then the novel switches and says, no, it's there because humans are afraid. This is a nice reversal, but sort of ignores that colonization doesn't usually involve fences. Why isn't anyone in Lusitania interested in getting out of the fence to take land, food, or just to screw with the piggies the way colonizers often just exploit the colonized for the hell of it? Ender's analysis of colonization is cynical, but not really cynical enough, given most of human history.